


half as happy as we

by mapped



Series: all here in one bed lay [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Blindfolds, Blow Jobs, Bondage, Dildos, Dirty Talk, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Oral Sex, Pegging, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Polyamory, Praise Kink, Pre-Series, Spitroasting, Strap-Ons, Threesome - F/M/M, black sails mmom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 15:52:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7228876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mapped/pseuds/mapped
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A follow-up to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6843337">these wildfires grow and grow</a>.</p><p>Miranda and Thomas are very fond of coming up with plans and trying them out on James.</p>
            </blockquote>





	half as happy as we

When Thomas returned home after his meeting with Lord Wright and stepped inside their bedroom, he was greeted by the sight of his wife in her white shift, sat at her vanity and taking out her earrings. She caught sight of him in the mirror and her reflection smiled at him.

That smile, he knew it. It had an edge of mischief.

He glanced at the four-poster. The normally pristine sheets that the servants tirelessly coaxed into tidiness every morning were creased, the blankets thrown to one side. He sat down on the bed and smoothed his hand over the middle. It was still slightly damp and warm. It took every ounce of his self-control not to bury his nose in it and seek out the remnants of a certain man’s scent. In fact, it took even more self-control not to start examining the bed closely to see if there were any red hairs left behind.

“My dear,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “You’ve certainly kept yourself occupied this evening.” 

“I thought it was about time that I introduced the Lieutenant to our bedroom,” Miranda replied sweetly.

She went over to him and untied his cravat. He and Miranda had talked about it before, about her taking James here and fucking him with that wonderful dildo of hers—Thomas sighed with pleasure, remembering the last time Miranda had used it with him—and he had approved of her plan. More than approved. He blushed to recall quite how much he’d liked the idea of it when she’d first brought it up.

Miranda smiled at the colour in his cheeks, and unbuttoned his waistcoat. “He was a little hesitant at first, but I dare say he enjoyed himself very much,” she continued as Thomas shrugged out of the garment. He reached back and pulled his white shirt off over his head, and then he hugged Miranda close for a moment and kissed her hair.

“Do tell me more,” he said softly.

Miranda ran her fingers through his short hair and then cradled the back of his neck as she kissed his mouth. “Let’s get into bed first, darling,” she said.

He took off his shoes and socks and breeches as Miranda climbed onto the bed and lay down, and then he blew out the candle and let down the curtains so they were shrouded in complete darkness. He lay down on his back next to Miranda and took a deep breath and fancied he could still smell James in the air.

Miranda draped one arm over his chest so that her left hand rested on his right shoulder; her breasts pressed snugly against his left arm through the thin fabric of her shift, and her lips were by his ear. “You should have seen the look on his face, Thomas, when he saw that dildo.” Her voice was magnificent in the dark, and Thomas had always thought that when the day came for him to take his final breath, he’d like that voice to be the last thing he ever heard upon this black earth. “He wanted it inside him the moment he saw it.”

Thomas thought of James’ intelligent green eyes, and what they might look like when clouded with desire.

“He admitted he’d never had anything inside him,” she murmured, and there was an instant when Thomas clean forgot how to breathe. “But I could tell he’d wanted it for so long. Christ, Thomas, when you fuck him for the first time, he’ll be so good for you.”

Thomas took himself in his own hand and stroked himself fully to hardness, grazing the nail of his thumb through the soft hairs at the base of his cock. He and Miranda had wondered before whether James had ever had another man in that way—Thomas felt a kind of guilt now at being pleased that James had not, but he swallowed the guilt and allowed himself to relish the pleasure. There was so much he wanted to show James, and he would. He would be the first to show him, and he would take such good care of him. He and Miranda together, they would take care of James and offer him every pleasure imaginable.

“I made him suck my cock,” Miranda said. “He looked beautiful on his knees, and he made the most gorgeous noise while he was doing it. But I think he’d look even better with your cock in his mouth. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Thomas didn’t know for certain, but he thought he probably would agree. He ran his thumb over the head of his cock, the wetness that welled from there, and shuddered. A fistful of James’ long, red hair in his hand—what would that feel like?

“He lay down on his back right here and I tied his hands with rope and put a blindfold over his eyes, made him spread his legs for me.”

Miranda’s hand was rubbing up and down his right arm, a persistent touch that made him shiver. He thought of James lying right here where he lay, his hair fanning over the pillow, his chest flushed, his mouth slack. He thought of all the freckles that Miranda had informed him of, and he thought about what it might be like to kiss James’ spread thighs as he worked him open with his fingers.

He stroked himself faster.

“He was so _loud_ ,” Miranda said. “Moaning like he was made for it. Begging like he wanted nothing else in the world. Pleading with that pretty mouth of his, ‘Please, Miranda, _please_.” Miranda practically exhaled that last word into his ear, and then she sucked at the skin beneath his earlobe.

Thomas squeezed the base of his cock and struggled to maintain some semblance of control over his breathing. He rolled his balls gently in his other hand and tugged at them. He could almost hear it, could almost hear James begging, _Thomas, please, fuck me_.

“I asked him how he’d feel if I left him like that, all tied up as a present for you,” Miranda said, and Thomas had to stop himself from demanding to know James’ reaction, so eager was he to hear it even though he knew Miranda would obviously tell him. “He wanted it, Thomas. He wanted you to see him like that. I think he would have welcomed it if you’d walked in at that moment and saw him unclothed and crying out for me to fuck him.” 

He could not bear it for much longer. He gripped his cock harder. He wanted to feel the tight heat of James around his cock, wanted to experience all this for himself. Would it be soon? God, he hoped so.

“I assured him that you’d love to see him like that,” she said. “And you would, wouldn’t you? My sweet Thomas, would you not dearly love to watch me fuck him and see how wantonly he begs for it? See what he looks like when he comes with a cock inside him?”

“Yes,” Thomas gasped. “God, yes.” And then he was spilling onto his belly with the vision of James, naked and legs spread wide, imprinted on the back of his eyelids.

He took a moment to just breathe, and then Miranda pressed a towel into his hand. He cleaned himself and cast the towel outside the curtains, before turning onto his side and thanking her.

“He wants you so much,” Miranda said, her hand running soothingly down his back. “You have him already.” She kissed his cheek and then the tip of his nose. “He’d do anything for you, I’m sure of it.”

“Anything except kiss me,” he huffed. He’d tried his best to give James ample cues, beats of meaningful silence when he would look into James’ eyes and touch him for a second too long, his palm lingering on James’ shoulder, James’ hands, which fidgeted endlessly, and even the small of James’ back, once.

He’d had to restrain himself from brushing his fingers against James’ cheek: that would probably be going too far.

“You may have to take that step first,” Miranda advised, as she drew a blanket over the two of them.

“But how can I be sure that he’s ready?” he said, aware that he sounded dangerously close to whining. He was willing to give James as much time as he needed, but he had in truth never wanted anyone as much as he wanted James. He was not used to feeling this way.

“I think when the right moment comes, you’ll know he’s ready,” Miranda said sagely, and her hand clasped Thomas’ in the dark. Their fingers intertwined, and Thomas found some measure of confidence.

Miranda was always so wise when it came to such matters. Thomas trusted her entirely.

* * *

Miranda was right. Thomas did know, when the moment came.

After that first kiss, he and James fell into bed for hazy days of joyful pleasure that blurred into one another, and Miranda was happy enough to leave the two of them to it. She told Thomas that she had had more than her fair share of James already.

A week passed of them spending as much time in James’ lodgings as possible, sleeping curled up in each other’s arms, waking to kisses, thumbing through books and reading aloud. When Thomas was in James’ room he felt like he had entered another world, a quiet world that was theirs alone.

One morning, he opened his eyes to James’ profile limned in the golden dawn, and before he knew it, a poem surfaced in his mind and passed through his lips, “ _Busy old fool, unruly sun, why dost thou thus, through windows, and through curtains call on us?_ ” His voice was still low and hoarse from sleep but James turned and looked at him, startled. It was a poem he’d memorised when he and Miranda had first started sleeping together, but he had not thought of it in years. He was pleased he still had the words exact.

The skin around James’ eyes crinkled in the hint of a smile, and then he said, “ _Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?_ ”

It was Thomas’ turn to be startled. Thomas had learnt that poem to court Miranda; how on earth did James McGraw know Donne by heart?

He sat up and tackled James; with a yelp, James fell back onto the bed and let Thomas kiss him long and slow.

Thinking of the poem made Thomas long for Miranda to join them in bed. When he went home, he took breakfast with Miranda and they came up with a plan. Miranda was delighted by his suggestions, and Thomas could only hope James would be too.

That evening, Thomas could barely focus on his letter-writing. He would find himself staring at the clock for minutes or accidentally blotting the page with a large ink stain because he forgot he was holding the quill at all. When the clock struck eight, as he and Miranda had agreed, he went to the bedroom. He stopped outside the door for a moment to compose himself before knocking. “It’s me,” he announced.

“Just a second,” he heard Miranda call. A pause, and then: “All right, come in.”

The handle of the door was cool in his hand. The door opened and Thomas walked in and saw—

Well.

He swallowed, his throat suddenly very dry. He pushed the door shut behind him.

His wife—that was a more familiar sight that he could just about cope with—was kneeling on the bed, facing him, long brown hair falling over her shoulders. She was always breathtaking, and on any other day, Thomas would yearn to kneel behind her, gather her hair to one side and kiss the back of her neck while he cupped her breasts in both hands.

But this was not any other day.

James was—

James was on all fours before Miranda—or he would be on all fours if Miranda hadn’t bound his hands behind his back. Miranda was holding him steady by pulling on the rope that tied his hands together. He was blindfolded, but if he wasn’t blindfolded he would look straight at Thomas.

Miranda _was_ looking straight at Thomas, and smiling. She appeared quite pleased with herself, and why wouldn’t she be?

“James,” she said. “Thomas is here.”

Thomas could see the harness fitted around Miranda’s hips, and he knew that she was inside James.

“Thomas?” James said, quietly, and Thomas’ heart ached. He wanted to go to him immediately, but he restrained himself.

“James,” he said, instead. “I’m here. You look beautiful.”

James’ cheeks went a deeper shade of red, lovely against the dark grey of the blindfold. Thomas watched as Miranda’s hips snapped forward and James moaned. He paced gently to the side of the bed so as to gain a better vantage point of the proceedings, as it were.

The dark leather of Miranda’s dildo formed a striking contrast to James’ pale skin, and—God, Thomas had been inside James. Just last night he had been inside James. He knew what that felt like now, knew how good it was to feel James clench around his cock. Miranda fucked James gently, but James was rocking back ever so slightly to meet every shallow thrust.

Thomas started to rid himself of his layers of clothing until he was only in his breeches, and he palmed himself through them. He was so hard already. Seeing this in person was so much better than he could have hoped.

“James,” Miranda said, stilling. James made a small noise of protest but did not move. She ran one hand from the nape of James’ neck down to where his hands were tied at his back. “Dear boy, won’t you put on a show for Thomas and fuck yourself on my cock?”

James jerked his hips back obediently, fucking himself harder than the pace Miranda had set for him; his back rolled sinuously every time he ground against Miranda’s pelvis with the full length of the dildo buried inside him. How was it possible that this was happening before Thomas’ eyes? He would have to think of a way to thank Miranda properly for this at a later date, but right now he briefly tore himself away from the view before him as he knelt on the edge of the bed and gave Miranda a deep kiss, one that had her trembling against him. He reached one hand down to her sex from behind: it was soaking wet, and he rubbed at it. Miranda’s breathing turned uneven and her eyes fluttered shut for a moment, and Thomas grinned. They had been married for years now, yet making Miranda lose her composure in bed was something he never tired of.

She turned her head towards him, kissing his neck, as he fucked her with two of his fingers, and she muffled her moans into the skin of his shoulder. Thomas could hear James panting as he continued to fuck himself on Miranda’s dildo. Then Miranda batted Thomas away and pressed her hands around James’ waist to make him stop as she took charge of the pace once more.

Thomas wiped his fingers on the sheets before he reached out and touched one of James’ hands, and James’ fingers closed around his. James clearly recognised that this was not Miranda’s smaller, slender hand, and said, “Thomas.” Though the name was more whimpered than spoken, and it sounded halfway a plea for something.

“James, go on, be a good boy and ask Thomas nicely for what you want,” Miranda encouraged, still fucking James more slowly than he presumably wanted. She touched James’ other hand, the one which was not holding Thomas’. 

“Thomas, please—please will you let me suck your cock?” His voice was thick with honest desire. Had Thomas ever heard any question so sweet?

He groaned. “Of course, James, of course,” he answered, and he was opening his breeches and shucking them down his thighs, moving around on the bed till he was kneeling in front of James. He caressed James’ face and James’ mouth opened for him.

Thomas traced James’ lips with the head of his cock and James was moaning, tongue darting out to lap at the slit and the salt liquid that beaded there. Thomas freed James’ hair from the blue ribbon that still tied it. He let the ribbon fall to the bed and ran his hand through James’ hair while he pushed his cock inside James’ mouth.

James began to bob his head without prompting, moving his mouth up and down the length of Thomas’ cock, sucking at the tip with hollowed cheeks and obscene noises. He was breathing hard, nostrils flaring, as all the while Miranda was still fucking him. For a moment Thomas considered what it would be like to be in James’ position instead of his own—and well, that was a thought he would have to store away and tell Miranda about later.

James was drooling all over Thomas’ cock, and when Thomas’ cock slipped out from his mouth by accident, he rubbed his cheek all over it and moaned as if he simply could not get enough, and Jesus _Christ_ , James McGraw was going to be the death of Thomas.

He knew James liked sucking cock, but he hadn’t quite known just how much until now. It was true: Miranda was exceedingly capable of drawing hidden things out of James, as she had boasted to Thomas once.

“James, I’m going to take off your blindfold,” he said, shakily. James nodded, so Thomas did so, fumbling with the string as his fingers felt clumsier than usual. Then there were those green eyes, looking up at him shyly, and for a moment Thomas lost track of what he was doing. He could lose himself in those eyes forever.

Then James nuzzled his cock, and he could _see_ James breathing him in, and he got a hold of himself again. “Will you let me fuck your mouth?” he asked. 

“Yes,” James moaned, eyes squeezing shut. “Please,” he added, and then he swirled his tongue around the head of Thomas’ cock as if for good measure. God, how had Miranda trained him so well? 

He grasped James’ hair in one hand and put the other on the back of James’ neck, and James held his mouth open. Thomas thrust into James’ mouth and experimentally rolled his hips a few times.

“Oh, Thomas, he can take it harder than that,” Miranda commented, and Thomas exhaled an unsteady laugh.

“You’re one to talk,” he said. “James, you want Miranda to fuck you harder, don’t you?” He rubbed his thumb over James’ cheekbone, his cock falling free of James’ mouth with a wet sound.

“Fuck, yes, Miranda, please,” James babbled. And then Thomas was filling his mouth again.

“Go on, Miranda, give our dear James what he wants,” he said.

“You spoil him,” Miranda said, but she listened, and Thomas watched as she fucked him harder, the force of her thrusts driving James forward to take Thomas’ cock deeper in his mouth. Thomas felt the head of his cock hit the back of James’ throat and James swallowed around him, and he and Miranda worked their way to a rhythm that had James a pliant, whining mess between them. Miranda’s hair was sticking to her forehead and neck; her breasts shone in a sheen of sweat.

Thomas was murmuring James’ name over and over, a litany of compliments passing through his lips without thought: ‘ _beautiful, sweet James_ ’, ‘ _oh, James, look at you, you’re brilliant_ ’, ‘ _James, darling, that’s perfect_ ’.

James only looked as if there was nowhere else he’d rather be than here, as if this was all he ever needed, as if pleasing Thomas and Miranda was what he lived for, his lashes weakly fluttering as his eyes rolled in pleasure, as he let Thomas take the wet heat of his mouth, saliva running down his chin.

Thomas met Miranda’s twinkling eyes, and James was pinned between them both, his broad, freckly back arched, Thomas’ cock in his mouth and Miranda’s dildo in his arse, and it was all too _much_ for Thomas. 

He came with a shout, gripping James’ shoulders tightly with both hands, his cock pulsing down James’ throat as James drank it all.

And then he sat back on the bed for a moment or two, before he finally summoned enough energy to get his breeches off the rest of the way, as they had been around his knees the whole time. James watched him intently, licking his swollen lips, his jawline glistening with spit, and they looked at each other while Thomas collected his breath and wondered what he ever did to deserve either of these two people in his bed. Then he kissed James tenderly while he reached back to undo the ropes around James’ hands.

Miranda helped, and then James’ hands were free and the first thing James did with them was not to touch himself, though his cock was surely feeling sorely neglected, but he steadied himself on the bed with one hand and cupped Thomas’ face with the other, deepening their kiss.

When they broke apart, James asked softly, “Will you touch me?” And Thomas was only too glad to do so, reaching underneath James to pump his cock. James gasped in relief and buried his face in Thomas’ neck, worrying the skin there with his teeth as Thomas dragged his hand over the copious wetness at the tip of James’ cock; with the aid of this lubrication, his hand slid easily up and down the length of James’ shaft.

Miranda bent over James and kissed his back, and then James said, half sobbing, “ _Fuck_ , oh God,” his hands scrabbling over Thomas’ shoulders as he spent himself onto the sheets.

Thomas made a half-hearted attempt to wipe the sheets with a towel from the nightstand, and then he gathered James to him and they lay down together; he kissed James’ forehead and ran his hands through James’ hair, attempting to tame the chaos he’d inadvertently made of it somewhere along the way. He tucked a strand behind James’ ear and James smiled sleepily at him, eyes half-shut.

Miranda was unstrapping the harness from himself, and when she was rid of it, Thomas pulled her down to rest between him and James. She lay on her side, facing him, while James behind her mouthed tired kisses into the back of her neck.

He placed a hand over her sex. _God_ , it was completely drenched; he loved to feel it. “I must thank you, my love,” he said, and her brown eyes were warm with affection that he hoped he would never have to live without. He pushed three fingers inside her easily, curling them within her, towards himself, and pressing hard at that spot he knew she loved.

“Thomas,” she moaned, and Thomas thought, _yes, my dear wife, yes_ as he teased her nipple with his other hand.

James’ hands joined his, one squeezing the swell of Miranda’s breast, the other rubbing the outside of Miranda’s sex, then Miranda was crying out, clamping down wetly on Thomas’ fingers.

They lay there, all three of them, regarding each other in the light from the candle that had burnt low and was almost extinguished. James was looking at Thomas’ neck over Miranda’s shoulder, brushing his fingers over something. Thomas looked down: it was a bruise from a kiss that he would have to conceal under his cravat tomorrow. He was certain that James made this one. There was another on his shoulder: Miranda had probably made that one.

Miranda smirked, twisting around to face James. “We’ve all got them, James. You have, too.”

James looked a little perplexed as Miranda started to point out the reddening marks on his neck and her own, as if he couldn’t quite comprehend at what point in the evening’s proceedings he could have received those marks. And then he started to look adorably pleased with himself.

Thomas hid a smile behind Miranda’s hair. He and Miranda were both such enthusiastic kissers, and now he feared they had converted James to their ranks, too.

The bed was damp and they were all covered in sweat, and Thomas, who hadn’t believed in God since he was a child, almost wanted to utter a prayer of thanksgiving.

He drew the curtains shut on his side of the bed just as the candle guttered out. In the dark, his hand found James’, and their fingers laced together over Miranda’s hipbone.

* * *

He heard rustling and felt the shifting of the mattress as someone moved over him. The curtains of the bed were drawn aside and the rays of the sun came through; Thomas felt the warmth of its light on his limbs.

A sigh—Miranda’s, and it was a contented sigh, Thomas could hear. And then she was saying, almost to herself, “ _Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; this bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere._ ”

Thomas’ eyes flew open to see James’ widen at the same time in recognition, and James was the first to laugh, that sound a burst of sweetness like juice bitten from a ripe fruit. Thomas was almost too stunned to react.

“What?” Miranda demanded sharply, seeing their amusement, and James started to explain to her.

If Thomas had only fortune and not God to thank for this meeting of their three minds, then he had to be the luckiest man in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the poem ['The Sun Rising' by John Donne](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/44129), which is also the poem that Thomas, James, and Miranda all quote in this fic.
> 
> Comments are much appreciated! As always you can find me on [tumblr](http://reluming.tumblr.com/) where I will be exceedingly happy to talk about my OT3 feels with you. <3


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